


When It All Changed

by Rulerofthefakeempire



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cook Grantaire, Living Together, M/M, Waiter Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:49:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4696244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofthefakeempire/pseuds/Rulerofthefakeempire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were all living together, it was expected to happen eventually. Two of them had to fall in love, but none of them figured it would be the most unlikely two. </p>
<p>Especially since they despised each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When It All Changed

They lived at the top of a very tall building in the center of the city, where the streets were rich with ideas and half-flung dreams, and the alleyways were not to be trodden in after dark. The floor they lived on had once been a series of flats, but the walls and doors had long been knocked down, leaving only a maze of spare rooms with strange things inside them and sections, large enough for all ten of them to live with room to spare.

 

At one point someone’s father, they couldn’t remember whose, had owned the entire building, but upon some economic downfall only one floor remained, which he gave to his son, whichever one it was. They didn’t even know if the son was still living there.

 

He never knew where any of them came from, what they were doing at the top floor of that building, all he knew was that their leader was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his whole life and he decided that he could base some loyalty off that.

 

He hadn’t known any of them before he had begun living there, nor did he remember how he had come to be living there. He just woke up on in their bath one morning, after a night he didn’t quite remember, and they had simply accepted him, made him breakfast and made him dry the dishes as if this was the sort of thing that happened at least twice a week.

 

He later learned that it wasn’t.

 

And then, when he didn’t just leave all on his own, they gave him a room and a key and he began to start putting his wages towards buying food and furniture and they never told him that he had over stayed his welcome, even when he drank all their wine and ate all the bread. They would just send him to buy some more.

 

They were a wide vary of human, the youngest being ten and the oldest twenty three, some of them went to high school, the elder four went to university and all of them, excluding the boy, had jobs that they worked hard at, and they weren’t kindly to him. They were rude, and rough, and jovial, and he was rude and rough, and jovial back and he liked it there.

 

He liked it there more than he had liked it anywhere else.

 

And they liked him back.

 

When he came home the Thursday before everything changed the younger six boys were still at school and one of the older four boys was attending a class, by four they would all be home, eating, watching television, being loud, but for the time being, all was quiet. Feuilly was listening to music, lying lazily on the couch, his legs sticking right off it. He didn’t notice Grantaire come in, the elevator door opening to let him on to their floor. Enjolras as sitting at his ancient desk with a few great heaving books, his notepad and a pen and the sort of look on his face that would’ve flattened cities if only he had turned it in the right direction. His hair was tied over his shoulder again with the red ribbon that he had untied from the breadbasket a few months before. Grantaire loved his hair; to him it was like spun gold and far more valuable.

 

Enjolras looked up as he entered, leaning his cheekbone on his knuckles, his eyes thick with distaste.

 

“Welcome back.”

 

Enjolras when he was relaxed was so cool he made ice feel insecure.

 

“Afternoon, good afternoon.”

 

Grantaire dropped his bag onto the floor and Enjolras glared at him until he picked it back up again and hung it on the hook.

 

The truth was, Enjolras despised him. Never enough to kick him out, but just enough to treat him like a second-class citizen under his rule. Grantaire was a mostly gentle soul, he spoke softly, he moved slowly and he thought that of all things Enjolras was oblivious was the only one that applied to him.

 

Enjolras was, and always would be oblivious to the way that Grantaire loved him.

 

Enjolras looked back down at his books and his study, and Grantaire approached him, taking his ponytail into his hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world. This was the one thing that Enjolrus would let him do, and he gripped onto it as tight as he could. The hair sifted through his hands as he ran his fingers through it, so soft for a man so severe.

 

Curls like feathers, Grantaire loved his hair.

 

Feuilly shifted on the sofa and muttered something neither of them responded to.

 

“How was your day?” Enjolras asked curtly, he turned a page.

 

He always asked that.

 

“Fine, fine. Javert threw a fit at one of the casuals today though, poor girl nearly burst into tears.” Grantaire worked part time as a chef in a restaurant just down town from where they lived, actually almost all of the boys did. Even Enjolras worked as a waiter and part time pastry chef. The restaurant was owned by one of the older boy’s, Marius’s, father in law, but his husband, Javert, managed it, much to all the employee’s dissatisfaction.

 

None of them knew exactly what to make of their relationship.

 

He weaved Enjolras’ hair through his fingers.

 

“I hear that he’s growing more and more touchy.”

 

It was true, the only thing that made him soft was Valjean and he only came to come to check up on the shop every other day, and most times it was only to check that they were all doing their jobs correctly, to grab some lunch, or have an excuse to kiss Javert. Nobody knew why he needed an excuse, they were married and Javert was good with it, enthusiastic even.

 

For the record Enjolras didn’t ‘hear’ that he was getting more touchy, he was the reason that Javert was slowly becoming a terrible human being. The only reason that Javert hadn’t fired him already was that he was the best waiter they had and his croissants had a very strong female following that may have had something to do with the fact that he looked hot as hell in a apron. Grantaire could hold to that.

 

Enjolras was a revolutionary soul; he took neither better, nor bad on the chin. His only standard was that it was good, whatever it was. He allowed nothing less and nobody was really quite sure whether that was a good thing or not. Could’ve gone either way really.

 

“And you are making him so,” Grantaire responded, as sober as he had been all week.

 

“Not on purpose,” Enjolras turned a page in his mammoth book. Enjolras was studying architecture and political science in the inner city university, Grantaire went to the culinary school around the corner.

 

“Not on purpose,” Grantaire repeated, mostly to himself. He retied the soft red ribbon back around the end of Enjolras’ curly hair. He was almost saddened that the experience had ended. When he was done and the bow had been tied he brushed none existent dust of his shoulders and Enjolras leaned back, so that he was looking up at him with his big blue eyes, looking just severe as he always did.

 

He rested the top of his head on Grantaire’s stomach and the dark hair boy’s heart leapt violently into his throat. Grantaire looked back down at him and for a moment both were completely silent, making no movement, except to stare into each other’s eyes.

 

“You know,” Enjolras said quietly, “I do like it when you braid my hair.”

 

At this point Grantaire all but fainted and Enjolras was left wondering what he’d done.

 

…

 

The next day, the Friday before it all changed, when he came home again Enjolras wasn’t sitting at his ancient desk with his huge books like he should have been, instead he was standing with Courfeyrac in the kitchen, carefully threading his arms into the sleeves of his ancient red overcoat. The coat was almost as old as his desk was; Enjolras was nearly entirely surrounded by ancient things. The coat was the most perfect shade of red, Grantaire loved the coat as much as he did the hair, and it was battered and broken and had had all the stains dutifully rubbed out of it and the rips all sewed up. He had the money to buy a new coat, he certainly deserved one, but there was something about it that defined him, something that couldn’t be taken away.

 

When Grantaire had woken up in the bath, it was that coat that was keeping him warm.

 

And what was even stranger was that he was wearing a suit, Marius’s suit, and he was very clean-shaven. Enjolras was always clean-shaven but when he wore a suit it made him appear more so.

 

“Where are you going? And how much money do I need pay you to take a picture and send it to your father?”

 

Enjolras sneered at him, and he sneered back, maybe he gave him too many reasons to despise him after all.

 

“I have to go to Gavroche’s parent teacher interview.”

 

Gavroche was the ten year old and of course he did.

 

“Why? You’re not his parent.”

 

Enjolras flattened the collar of his overcoat.

 

“Yes, but if we avoid anymore of them, they’re going to know something is wrong.” Enjolras wasn’t the oldest, he shouldn’t have gone, it shouldn’t have been him.

 

Courfeyrac and Garoche were adoptive brothers, but their not-father had run off with a drunken waitress and left them to fend for themselves. He was the one who was meant to be the stand in for the guardian part of the parent/guardian, but he had been sick the day that Gavroche had started at his new school and Marius had had plans, and Grantaire wasn’t exactly presentable so Enjolrus had stepped in.

 

And now, whenever Gavroche’s guardian needed to play a part Enjolras would don some presentable clothes and be his severe and shockingly mature self in public.

 

Courfeyrac was hovering over him as he brushed his hair and grabbed his keys from the bench.

 

“If there are any issues you need to tell me, okay?”

 

Enjolras nodded and threw his keys in the direction of Grantaire; they missed him by at least a meter.

 

“Drive me.”

 

“And if he’s in trouble you gotta let me know about that too,” Courfeyrac continued.

 

“Why do I need to drive you? Drive yourself.”

 

Grantaire stooped and snatched the keys from the ground and threw them back, Enjolras caught them and threw them back again.

 

“I need you to pretend you’re my brother, and it’ll look better if you’re driving.”

 

“I’m still in my uniform,” he gestured to himself, his white suit covered in flour and stains, his hair still in a sweaty bun at the top of his head.

 

“All the better, it’ll make you look like you work hard for your nephew.”

“Ugh, fine, you have to make dinner Wednesday.” And they headed out again, Enjolras’ coat swinging behind him, a forever crimson sweep as they stepped into the elevator.

 

Later Enjolras told him to wait out side the classroom with Gavroche while he pretended to be a responsible parent or guardian and the other parents were staring at him and he honestly couldn’t tell whether it was because he was so young or because he was covered in flour. Could’ve been either really.

 

“Hey, can I ‘ave a go?”

 

Courfeyrac probably would’ve given him the whole phone if he had so asked, but Grantaire was a little less persuaded.

 

“Not until you’re old enough to drink,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen, his thumbs tapping in rhythm. The rules were that you could only ask for a go if you were willing to take a shot.

 

Gavroche grumbled something that he couldn’t quite discern and the phone vibrated in his hands, and a notice popped up, a text.

 

**Courfeyrac: Get Enjolras home. Police showed up. Home. Now.**

Police, police didn’t usually show up while he was out. This was odd. He stumbled out of his seat, muttering a quick ‘stay here’ in Gavroche’s direction who nodded, smiling and reaching for the phone he abandoned on the seat. With out ever thinking of knocking he barreled into Gavroche’s teacher’s classroom.

 

“Enjolras,” he said, eyes not quite looking up, “we need to go home.”

 

He looked up and then there was Enjolras looking at him angrily, and the older woman who sat behind the desk was staring at him.

 

Enjolras gritted his teeth, and glared at him, turning back to the older woman.

 

“This is my… ah…” he briefly forgot who he was meant to be pretending Grantaire was, “brother,” he said definitively. The woman’s expression softened.

 

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that sweetie,” police, did she mean the police? He was really only worried about the police. “We accept all couples here, this is a discrimination free zone.”

 

For one brief and glorious moment Enjolrus didn’t know what she was talking about while Grantaire was already grinning at the door. But then it clicked inside his mind and he immediately began to deny it, his cheeks lighting up pink.

“No, no, we’re not-”

 

Before he could respond Grantaire came up behind him, and wrapped his arms around his shoulders with a lopsided grin.

 

“Thank you, it’s not every day you get a educational facility with no judgment.”

 

Enjolras was left to just blush as red as his coat and jam the heel of his boot down onto Grantaire’s.

 

“It’s been so nice,” he continued, “but we really have to be going, there’s been an emergency at home and we really gotta get back.”

 

The woman smiled at him and he smiled back at him.

 

“Oh that’s fine,” she said, “we’re just about done here anyway.” Enjolras began to get up, and before he could wriggle his way out of his arms Grantaire wrapped his arm around his waist. If he was allowed for just this moment to be in love with Enjolras outside of his own head, then he was going to enjoy it as much as he could.

 

And his arm was real comfortable around his waist and it made him feel like he was stronger than he was.

 

Somehow they managed to get out of there with out the woman giving them a medal for being as gay as she thought they were, and by the time they got home the police were gone and they were no longer married and the other seven boys were sitting in the living room waiting for them.

 

…

 

The Saturday before everything changed was a strange day.

 

Stranger than all the ones before and they were strange.

 

It began with them all waking up at the same time, which they never did, and then they all ate breakfast together, which they hadn’t done since Grantaire had woken up in the bath.

 

And then, afterward, they had a very long conversation about the law, and why it was in their best interest to uphold it. None of them really cared for the law; as far as they were concerned the law was what you did when you needed someone else to think on your behalf.

 

But unfortunately for them, the law had guns and secure facilities where they kept people who didn’t.

 

The police, thankfully, had not come around for Gravorch and Courfeyrac and their distinct lack of parental guidance, they had come for all of them, specifically the taller ones. None of them had been arrested parse, or at least not yet, but they were getting there and that’s what counted.

 

Mostly it was just Enjolras who spoke, and the jist of it went like this:

 

“So help me god if any of you so much as blink in the direction of a police station I will personally drag you down to some manner of basement and torture you until you become so mad you start speaking Swahili.”

 

And to this Grantaire would occasionally raise ten o clock shot and mutter:

 

“Yeah.”

 

…

 

The Monday before everything changed nothing happened and they all kept out of each other’s way.

 

It was incredibly dull.

 

…

 

The day before everything changed the world was shifting; he could feel it.

Enjolras took a plate from him and lifted it onto the tray held above his shoulder, and Grantaire watched him swing around the tables, eyes half open, barely awake to do a job so many struggled with.

 

Eventually he dragged his eyes away and continued on with the thing he got paid to do, he could stare at Enjolras in his free time. It was only them working tonight, the guys were probably back at their floor by now, probably asleep or watching tv. And he would legitimately kill to be them. Enjolras and his shift only ended around midnight, the closing house and it was only nine.

 

By the time that everything was closed and Javert had slunk off back to his house with Valjean Enjolras and he were sitting at one of the tables, in the process of working up the energy to go home. Enjolras was bending back in his chair, his arms back, and his neck slack as if it just couldn’t keep his head upright anymore.

 

…

 

The day everything changed came when they were going in the elevator, twelve o clock on the dot. And the world was shifting still and Enjolras was leaning on him and he couldn’t tell whether it was because he was just this solid thing within his vicinity or because it was him.

 

Not that he was complaining, because he wasn’t.

 

When the doors slid open onto their floor and they stumbled in the living room was dark and cold and quiet. Grantaire flicked on the light and Enjolras very theatrically collapsed face first on to the sofa. Neither of them really wanted to go to sleep yet, sure they had no energy left, but they had gone through all the trouble of staying awake all this time, they deserved something.

 

Grantaire flicked Enjolras’ ear.

 

“Hey, want to drink until someone tells us to stop?”

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Enjolras groaned, hauling himself up from the sofa.

 

By one they were up on the roof singing the French national anthem as loud as they possibly could.

 

By two they were down to the good whiskey and were having deep, philosophical conversations about the bases of cheese crackers and peanut butter.

 

By two thirty they were stumbling down to the convenience store to buy cheese crackers and peanut butter with some money they had found under the couch.

 

By three they were sitting on Grantaire’s bed they were sitting cross-legged with their foreheads pressed together, trying to read each other’s thoughts.

 

And Grantaire could feel Enjolras’ breath on his face and even though it smelt like brandy he smelt like spiced tea and books, because Enjolras always smelt like spiced tea and books. And he could see the specs of grey in his blue eyes and the light freckles on his cheeks and across his nose and he couldn’t think of a moment he would rather be in.

 

And he was drunk, and lonely, and when he was drunk and lonely he said things he would regret and he didn’t even care.

 

“What if I told you,” he said, the warmth of another body intoxicating him, “what if I told you, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen?” he didn’t even had the mental capacity to regret the words yet, the look on Enjolras’ face could keep him going forever.

 

He giggled.

 

“You make me say dumb things.”

 

Enjolras giggled back, grinning drunkenly.

 

“What if I told you,” Enjolras began, like a game, “what if I told you that your hair makes me happy?”

 

Enjolras’ hands covered his on his knees and he was suddenly aware of that.

 

“What if I told you,” he continued, “what if I told you that to me, you are the sun?”

 

He began to intertwine their fingers.

 

“What if I told you,” Grantaire could still feel his breath when he spoke, “what if I told you that to me you are the stars?”

 

His stroked his thumb over the back of Enjolras’ hand and everything just felt so soft. They slipped past each other’s foreheads and rested on each other’s shoulders.

 

“What if I told you that you mean the world to me?”

 

He felt Enjolas grin into his shoulder and he promised to remember this moment until he was dead.

 

“What if I told you that you that there would never come a day when I won’t love you?”

 

There was a tingling his toes and it was rising through his, overtaking his every pore or cell, stealing him.

 

“What if I told you that I would be very, very pleased about that.”

 

Enjolras drew back, in some brief moment of sobriety and starred into his eyes.

 

“I love you.”

 

And when those words exited his mouth the world seemed slow down and it felt like everything he had ever fucked up was finally making sense and every decision he had ever made orbited around this moment, and then finally, the world stopped shifting and the only person he could see was Enjolras and he was so happy and so confused and just so everything that he had ever felt in his entire life.

 

And them he kissed Enjolras and everything locked perfectly into place. His lips were soft and his hand was on his chest and he tasted like the good brandy and peanut butter and his hand was in the glorious curls and he was pulling Enjolras towards him. And it felt like everything he did went straight to his dick.

 

Somehow he managed force Enjolras back, onto the bed, and he was hovering above him, his knee between his legs, his hands on either side of Enjolras’ head and they were staring at each other again and before coherent thought could stop him he leant his mouth down to the edge of Enjolras’ ear.

 

“I don’t know many things, I’m not smart, nor all that witty, but some days, the only certain thing I have is that I love you and I wouldn’t give that up for all the world combined.”

 

…

 

After everything changed he woke up and there was something heavy lying onto of him. Something heavy and _breathing_.

 

And his head was absolutely pounding and he was finding it difficult not to throw up and he stared at a ceiling that wasn’t his ceiling and the heavy, breathing thing muttered something into his ear.

 

He wondered if he was dead.

 

He felt pretty dead.

 

He remembered everything, mostly, he remembered the important bits. The… kissing, he remembered the kissing very well. And the words, all the words, the words that were important, the words that could make or break him. What was really important was where to go from here.

 

Personally he would like some strong coffee, enough aspirin that it counted as a narcotics crime and more kissing, but he was feeling a little biased so he punched Grantaire and demanded his consciousness.

 

“Grantaire, wake up,” he hissed. At least he didn’t have to do anything today; neither of them did if he remembered correctly. Eventually, after a few more punches, he did wake up and he somehow managed to hold himself for a moment above Enjolras, who was still pinned beneath him. Grantaire blinked at him.

 

“Oh,” he said, “this is a dream, right.”

  
He returned to his previous position and Enjolras pushed him off the bed.

 

Grantaire leapt up.

 

“Not a dream.”

 

Of course, Grantaire would be immune to a hangover. Naturally.

 

“Not yet,” Enjolras growled, hauling himself up and bending over his knee.

 

Grantaire stared at him awkwardly.

 

“So, er, last night…?” He said, rubbing the back of his head.

 

“Yeah?”

 

He was hangover and tired, so yeah, he was gonna make him say it.

 

“Do you remember?”

 

Enjolras smirked at him.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Did you… um… change your mind?”

 

Oh, he was enjoying this way too much.

 

“Did you?”

 

He wanted to take a photo of Grantaire’s face.

 

“Um… ah… no? I mean unless you did, because in that case I’m totally over being in love with you.”

 

He really needed to start carrying around a video camera.

 

When he stood on the same side of the bed as Grantaire he just stared at him, uncertain and on the border of asking again. He tied up his hair in a bun before he answered, but when he did he was smirking and looking irrationally pleased with himself.

 

“For the record, me neither.”

 

“Oh thank fuck.”

 

And then Grantaire grabbed Enjolras’ hands and kissed his so hard they had to find themselves a wall to be pressed up against.


End file.
